Tag Archives: transport planning

Making sense of policy mixes

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Policy mixes are the complex arrangement of objectives or goals and the instruments or measures devised to achieve them. They are not policy processes, although they develop over time, as outputs from ongoing political and technocratic processes and cycles. They are not policy strategies, although strategy documents often contain lists of goals and references to instruments.
Policy mixes cannot be found in one document – their component parts are spread across strategies and funding bids, guidance and even press releases. Policy mixes are not the responsibility of any individual policymaker – the expertise and resources to prioritise goals and to design and deliver the instruments lie with an array of teams at different levels of governance and across private and third sector, as well as public sector organisations.
Thus, compiling the policy mixes for the electrification of private and shared passenger transport in Bristol and its hinterland was a challenging task. We identified thirty individual policy instruments and grouped them, with some duplication where appropriate, by four modes: private vehicles (including those used for business and taxis), car-sharing, e-bikes, and e-scooters. Each instrument was categorised and listed with its intended goals; its spatial extent and timescale; and its consideration of the distributional, recognition, and participation dimensions of social justice.
The resulting spreadsheet was described as impressive or intimidating – or both! Explaining its contents at our third policy and governance workshop for the ITEM project was not simple. And this despite the fact that all eleven participants were involved with developing policy strategies and goals or implementing policy instruments or lobbying for policy improvements on behalf of particular user groups.
Nonetheless, we not only explained it, but asked the participants to score the policy mixes according to the complementarity of instruments, the coherence of goals, the alignment between instruments and goals, and the implications for distribution, recognition and participation for each mode and all modes together. Academics have attempted to undertake this sort of task to better analyse how policy has driven or could better drive change. We wanted to go one step further and not just analyse as academics, but also encourage action among policymakers. So we guided our participants through the task. We asked them to consider how they could consciously and strategically improve the policy mixes.
One rewarding result of taking this approach was through our work – and our excessively small-print spreadsheet – they could see that lots of great initiatives were happening in Bristol. Their views were broadly positive that the policy mixes showed consistent goals, with instruments reinforced more than undermined, and that whilst more could be added, there was not so much to take away.
Admittedly, the scores for the justice implications were lower – not all the policy mixes were evenly distributed nor recognised every social grouping nor, in particular, enabled much participation or influence in their planning and implementation. Here was room for improvement: finding ways to listen to new voices above the roar from the usual suspects, relying less on digital tools.
As the discussion moved to strengthening the policy mixes, the ever-present spectre of insufficient funding reared its head. Policy instruments and goals might be strategically focused in principle, but if they were not properly funded, then how could they ever extend to all the places and people needed to be just? Could creative distribution of funds help? Just as evaluating policy mixes rather than isolated instruments reveals synergies as well as gaps, so considering how groups rather than individuals are affected could enable recognition of intersecting needs that might be more efficiently met. Likewise, the policy mixes include carrots and sticks. Participants suggested that seeing both on a single page helped them to consider how to match the carrots to where (or whom) the sticks are targeted.
We will be producing a more detailed, structured report of how we evaluated the policy mixes in Bristol and the ideas and recommendations that will accelerate a more inclusive transition to electric mobility in Bristol. But for now, suffice it to say, the first step, making sense of policy mixes together, was completed with a sense of achievement.

Moving Beyond Modes

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Many of the policymakers and stakeholders we have interviewed for the ITEM project expressed uncertainty, and even hesitancy about the transition to electric mobility. In Poznań, Poland; Bristol, UK; and even Oslo, Norway, the urban transport policymakers in particular were not sure that supporting the transition to electric mobility is a local priority.

Or more specifically, supporting the transition from personal internal combustion engine (ICE) to electric cars is not a priority in these medium-sized European cities. Why? An electric car is ‘still a car’ as one Poznań policymaker said. The same policymaker went on to describe the importance of investing in public transport, explicitly contrasting it to electric mobility.

In other words, many of our participants interpreted questions about the transition to electric mobility as questions about the transition to electric vehicles (EVs) or even more specifically, to personal / private EVs. Personal, private EVs do not fit urban transport policy visions of less congested, more vibrant cities, any more than ICE vehicles do, even if EVs make the city less polluted and lower greenhouse gas emissions. 

We, as researchers, often had to prompt participants to give their policy perspective on the switch to electric propulsion for other vehicle types like buses and bicycles. Their views on new(ish) vehicle types like e-scooters were ambiguous – pleased with their popularity, worried about their impact on space and place. Most didn’t even mention other EV alternatives, such as the electric mobility scooters and wheelchairs, or the pedal-free two- and three- wheelers commonly found in other parts of the world.

Partly this is because the focus of global and national discussions about the transition to electric mobility is often on EVs, as the IEA’s annual report demonstrates. However, that is not the only reason that many transport planners and practitioners default to personal EVs when asked about the transition to electric mobility.

Modes, modal hierarchies and modal shift are useful ways of explaining, learning about, and dividing responsibilities for transport policy, design and operation. Even those responsible for transport strategy across the geographical area of a municipality usually divide transport into modes. E-scooters and alternative types of EVs are not easily assigned to traditional modal categories such as active travel or public transport – no wonder our policymakers are not sure how to regulate them or whether they are a positive addition to their city’s transport system.

Meanwhile, alongside the heuristic of segmenting transport by mode sit other assumptions: Modal hierarchies describe which modes are more or less socially, economically, and environmentally valued in policy terms. Modal shift is what needs to happen so that more people travel by the more valued modes in a given hierarchy. Therefore, transport policy processes should aim to influence individual mode choice to achieve the desired modal shift. They should make more valued modes more attractive and efficient or less valued modes less attractive and efficient.

The problem is that not everyone has the same capability to choose nor the same perception of what is attractive nor the same urge for efficiency of movement. Accessibility and affordability are obvious barriers or motivations, but what about social opportunities and pressures? What about experiences of safety or enjoyment of risk? What about the added value of travelling more slowly if that time is also active or productive or contemplative?

Modal thinking limits how innovative and inclusive policy-making for the transition to electric mobility can be because it comes with so many prior assumptions, not least that personal electric cars are the only type of electric mobility being discussed. We need to move beyond modal knowledge. It is useful, perhaps fundamental to the responsibilities of transport policymakers and practitioners. But it must be complemented by new learning if we are to take advantage of all the opportunities to be innovative and inclusive that the transition to electric mobility can offer.

All About Audience

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I have not posted a blog for three months, but I have presented my research to five different audiences in that time. It’s been busy – and instructive.

My first audience included colleagues from various departments and disciplines across the University at an event to share research on ‘Behaviour and the Environment’. I focused first on my previous project, Park and Charge Oxfordshire, and results from a Stated Choice experiment on parking and charging preferences and the behavioural questions of EV adoption. I concluded with a short summary of my current research project, ITEM: Inclusive Transition to Electric Mobility, which partially questions the behavioural choice perspective on the transition.

My second audience were part-time students on a continuing education Masters. As the seminar was due to last 90 minutes, I started preparing those slides first, so I’d have plenty of material from which to develop my other presentations. I was still updating them the day before, adding extra slides in case I needed them to fill the time. I agreed to answer questions as I went along, and barely got through all the material I had originally included, never mind the extra.

My third audience was our research participants: policymakers and stakeholders, many of whom I’d interviewed as part of the research data collected to analyse the policy perspective. The presentation parts of the workshop had to be quick, to give plenty of time for moderate structured discussions that still felt almost too short.

My fourth audience was at a professional conference attended mainly by transport practitioners from the public and private sector. I wrote a conference paper, which I knew said all I wanted it to. That was to be circulated after the event, but on the day itself, I spoke at 5:30pm in one of five parallel sessions. The last presenter in the last session of a long day. We were all a bit tired!

My fifth and final audience was at an academic conference, where I presented at the end of the first session, 10am, on the last day. With all the previous presentations under my belt, I was no longer making last minute changes to my slides, I kept to time and received useful feedback for the comparative academic paper I am currently drafting on the policy perspective.

All these presentations took a lot of work, as there are not as many economies of scale as you might think in presenting the same work multiple times, if you are doing so for diverse audiences in a variety of formats. The process was, however, instructive and gave me new insights into both how to present my work and the work itself.

For example, the internal academic audience taught me the value of making connections between past and future work.

The teaching taught me to always build in a wide range of audience participation time if you are planning on taking questions as you go along. You never know how engaged your audience will be or which material will draw comment.

At the workshop, my presentation wasn’t as important as the distillation of some of the findings into statements and activities to facilitate discussion. The research participants gave us insights not only into our analysis of the electric mobility transition in Bristol, but also into wider issues and interactions with other places and other research.

Session assignment at a conference is not within a presenter’s control, but once the programme is announced, it is important to think not only about who you are presenting to, but also when. Nobody is likely to be full of energy and enthusiasm in the late afternoon, so I should probably have aimed for less, but more catchy content.

Finally, I found that a little bit of academic theory, if explained briefly and simply, enhanced the more practical points in my presentation. That’s academic expertise at its best, and could well have done the same for some of my presentations to non-academic audiences!

Pet Peeve Pavement Parking

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I was recently reminded of two of my biggest pet peeves / bugbears / aggravations / vexations / annoyances. Sorry, a bit too much fun with the thesaurus there.

First, petrol leaf blowers. Despite the unusually mild weather, leaves have been falling, and I was out walking with the family when we passed someone using one of these loathsome machines. The nuisance as well as the noise, air and climate pollution makes me grit my teeth, although also thankful I no longer live on a managed estate where the contracted gardeners used them about once a week this time of year.

Second, pavement parking. For my well-being and sanity, I force myself to ignore all but the most egregious examples, so ubiquitous they are. Even then, I am often walking with my children when we are forced into the road by an obstructive vehicle, so I grit my teeth and refrain from swearing. In one recent case, a delivery driver must have seen my face and actually apologised! Although he was technically unloading, not parking.

But the real reminder of how much pavement parking winds me up came not from a chance encounter, but as I was drafting a response to an academic query. I was reminded that it’s been almost two years now since the government’s consultation on banning pavement parking outside London closed. At the time, I argued in a blog that it was important to have a full, enforceable ban as the default. Traffic Regulation Orders, and all the red tape they involve, should not be required to forbid pavement parking on certain streets but to permit it in special circumstances.

Yet since all those responses, no new legislation has been passed. Not even a summary of the feedback to the consultation has been published. I have heard that it is regularly discussed by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Cycling and Walking, who know how important it is to activists (and I hope ordinary pedestrians!). Even a quick internet search suggests that some action has been regularly expected and anticipated, including by automotive groups.

However, with the government in constant disarray and a revolving door for Secretary of State for Transport, will they do something soon? And once they do something, will it be a complete ban or will more red tape be needed to stop obstructive parking? And no matter which, are our local Councils, highways officers, and civil enforcement teams ready to take action? The answers to all three of these questions are cause for concern.

Many motorists think they have a right to park outside their home, even if that means they block the public footway. Or rather, they simply take it for granted, usually without thought. When parking is removed or threatened with removal, it is often politically contentious. Policies to increase the regulation of parking would probably be up there with Low Traffic Neighbourhoods in terms of generating controversy, if it weren’t for the fact that such policies are so rarely debated and any action so often delayed.

Thus, although banning pavement parking would be an inexpensive and impactful way to improve the environment for active travellers, discourage often obstructive car use, and potentially even raise money to spend on other transport improvements, the government may continue to demur and delay.

I hope they don’t. I hope they realise that any public protests and bad press are driven (pun intended) by a vocal minority. I hope that one day I can walk around my neighbourhood and only be bothered by the occasional electric leaf blower for a couple months a year, rather than by pavement parking every day of every month.

Handling Holiday Travel

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We once travelled to South Devon on the late May bank holiday weekend to celebrate the wedding of some friends. It took us a tortuous 8 hours to travel less than 200 miles. But it wasn’t a surprise.

We expect certain bank holidays or weekends at the beginning and end of Christmas and summer holidays to be the busiest travel days of the year, and yet holiday travel does not seem to come within the remit of transport planners, nor does it ever seem to be a major consideration in surface transport infrastructure strategies.

Tourist destinations make plans to accommodate visitors, but not the journeys they take to get there, and aviation strategy tends to sit in a separate silo from surface transport.

And yet, long distance travel is responsible for a larger share of climate emissions from transport than shorter distance travel, and the further you go, the fewer the options to travel in a more environmentally friendly way. Furthermore, as we come out of a period which has shown how efficient video conferencing can be for businesses, the likelihood is that long-distance travel will be increasingly synonymous with ‘holiday travel’, even though that includes the varied purposes of tourism, visiting friends and family, attending events, or participating in leisure pursuits.

So transport planners need to start thinking about how to plan for holiday travel when we plan for strategic transport infrastructure, when we target travel behaviour, when we model impacts or appraise projects.

This has to be about more than aviation. Whilst I stand by previous blogs arguing for that long haul flights are necessary and important, if not guilt-free, especially for someone like me who lives an ocean away from close family (and the pandemic has definitely demonstrated to me that online interaction is NOT a replacement!), there are few realistic alternatives other than managing demand through measures such as the frequent flyer tax.

Short haul and domestic travel is another story. It is worrying that new domestic aviation routes are being introduced and at prices well below train travel. And the price / time comparisons between air and train are incomplete without also considering where each mode terminates, how people travel the rest of the way (or to the airport or train station in the first place) and then how that compares with travelling by road.

Remember those interminable bank holiday traffic jams I described at the start? Traffic flow affects emissions, as does car occupancy, weight, age, engine type / fuel and use of heating or air conditioning. Taking the train might still be a more sustainable option, but as the emissions link above shows, car travel is not a monolithic behaviour or emitter – and the characteristics of holiday car travel are more difficult to pin down than a daily car commute.

Meanwhile, households do consider their holiday travel when making long-term choices, even if transport planners are not thinking of holiday travel strategically.

This is particularly noticeable when researching the motivations and barriers to switching to battery-powered vehicles. Consumers may realise that the range of most electric cars is perfectly adequate for their daily travel, but worry they will not be able to visit dispersed family. Others see the lack of electric vehicles large enough to pack the gear or to tow the trailer for their annual camping trip as a reason to postpone adoption. Still others worry about the availability of charging infrastructure when going somewhere unfamiliar. Some households even keep a fossil-fuel powered car after they have switched to electric, specifically for occasional, ‘holiday’ travel.

Whether providing for or managing travel, transport planning has long focused on regular, necessary trips, especially the commute, but also accessibility to key goods and services, such as food, education, and healthcare. But holidays happen, are impactful, and are integral to some of the bigger choices, such as car ownership, that affect travel behaviour. We need to start thinking about how to handle holiday travel.

Carless on a car dependent Thursday

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As well as being a transport planner and researcher, I am also a wife and mother of two children in primary school. We live in a one-car household, partly due to our mobility history and partly on principle.

Despite living in a small town in South East England, which some locals prefer to call a village and many would consider fairly car-dependent, we moved here so my husband could walk to work. I have always taken the train when not working from home. With our excellent, catchment school less than a mile away and local amenities to meet many of our needs, the car’s role in our mobility history has been for more occasional errands and leisure trips.

Meanwhile, my principles as a transport planner and researcher are to practice what I preach and minimise the car ownership and use of my household. A single car should be able to give us more than enough flexibility and freedom to go where we wanted.

Then, two years ago, my husband changed jobs. Commuting by car is at least twice as quick and convenient for him as convoluted cycling-public transport options. We still have one car, but it is in use at particular times of day and year without much flexibility.

I can still commute by train (although I have been working from home for 16 months), and the children’s school and activities are all within walking and cycling distance. And yet, I was recently forced to admit that our car dependence has increased.

One sunny Thursday, my husband had to work late. Three of the four activities (two each) outside school which my children attend are on a Thursday, so my husband usually comes home early to help with the ferrying, whether by car, bicycle, or on foot. But now I had to do it alone. Without a car.

I walked to pick the children up from school. We came home and my son changed for his first activity. We walked there (~10 minutes). I waited outside, doing some work on my phone, and then we walked home.

A little later, we walked (~10 minutes) to my daughter’s Thursday activity, but this time I rushed home, as my son’s next activity starts 15 minutes after my daughter’s.

I cycled with my son to his activity, his pace slower than mine due to leg and wheel size. He was less than 15 minutes late. Not bad. I cycled quickly straight from there to pick up my daughter and we walked home together.

My phone’s health app said I’d been ‘active’ for four hours without stopping. My husband came home in time to pick up our son and his bicycle in the car.

I don’t begrudge the exercise. I’m lucky to be fit enough, and my work flexible enough to have been able to get my kids where they needed to go all afternoon. Indeed, we’re privileged to be able to let them participate in such activities and to even have the option to purchase a second car. We won’t because I still have my principles, but I recognise that my son wouldn’t have been late and I would have been able to do more work and finish the day less exhausted if I had a car available.

It was a car dependent day. For accessibility and car dependency is not just about the location of activities, it is also about their timing – schedule, duration, and travel time.

Car dependency is also about family structure and household decisions (unless in single person households). Not only did we choose to prioritise my husband’s car commute, I chose not to let even our older child walk unaccompanied to a nearby activity because there is a busy road without a pedestrian crossing between our home and the venue.

Until transport and accessibility planning takes account of time as well as space, families as well as individuals, it will struggle to solve car dependency.

Policy, what policy?

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I have recently started a new research project which involves analysis of the social justice aspects of policies and policy-making for electric mobility.

I was also recently accused, in relation to a different project, of unhelpfully conflating guidance and policy.

Personally, I would refute that I was mixing the concepts up, but I do understand why it was seen as unhelpful.

The inconsistency in our respective perspectives appears to have derived from their narrower focus on policy as formally adopted strategic principles. Yet I believe policies are also inclusive of the more detailed descriptions of potential ways to implement those principles, even if agreed at a different level. For example, the road user hierarchy with pedestrians at the top and private cars at the bottom is an example of a strategic policy. But I would say that design guidance for the layouts of roads that put pedestrians first, or the sections of the highway code that indicate who has priority at a junction are also policies.

And yet, strategic policies often gain widespread, multi-level approval more easily, whereas ‘the devil is in the detail’. Pointing out such details could be seen as unhelpful if there is limited power to apply or implement the policy concerned.

Still, just in case, I thought I’d look up the dictionary definition of ‘policy’.

The source of inconsistency was immediately clear. Policies are defined as ‘principles of action’, ‘ideas or a plan of what to do’. Policies should systematically both ‘guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes’. So are they principles and ideas to guide decision-making or are they actions and plans that achieve something called outcomes? Policies are also defined as being adopted by or agreed to in some official manner by a particular group or organisation. Yet there are as many ways to officially agree to something as there are groups or groups of groups who might do the agreeing.

These questions also partially explain the why the academic literature on policy processes and design is contested, as it struggles to make sense of the discontinuity, ambiguity and uncertainty inherent in a process now generally accepted to be non-linear. Allocating agency and unpicking power relations is also tricky, as policies are not the same as politics, and individuals can be actors in their own right as a ‘policy entrepreneur’, for example, or buried in an ‘advocacy coalition’ or a ‘target population’. The terminology reflects the challenge of defining the policy process in a rational and consistent manner.

All this may be why many transport studies include a section on ‘policy implications’, usually of the effectiveness of certain ideas or principles, without engaging with policy makers or the process of how policy is made. Yet if transport planning wants to achieve goals of social justice, economic prosperity, and environmental sustainability, policy implications must consider not just statements of principle or indicators to measure outcomes, but also all the steps in between. And that means engaging with multiple elements of the policy process, even if the idea of distinct, linear policy stages has been criticised as overly simplistic.

This is particularly important for a project that aims to assess social justice, which also has multiple aspects. Transport research and planning tends to focus on distributional justice, measuring policy outcomes like accessibility. Yet there is also procedural justice, which is all about who is involved in policy design and decision-making, and the recognition aspect of justice, relating to who decides what is a problem that needs addressing and so sets the policy agenda.

In conclusion, policy is complex and contested. That is part of what makes policy what it is – and makes it only more likely that some will argue about what it isn’t.

Start at your Destination

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This year’s Transport Planning Network Conference was all about visioning. Which is the process by which a desirable future is imagined and then you work backwards to find how you can get there.

But starting at your destination is tricky. People carry a lot of baggage from the past and present. It’s difficult to think about what you would like to see, when you’re constantly feeling the pressure of what you think you could actually accomplish. Even if such thinking may hold you back.

Indeed, if you have not been trained on images of Freiburg and Copenhagen and Dutch transport planning, it can be difficult to ‘see’ the vision in the first place, even if pockets of it are right around the corner. Our first keynote speaker, Professor Emeritus Phil Goodwin noted that not only vested interests and political resistance are holding us back from visions of pedestrian paradise. People in their communities are often so car dependent that they may not be able to see any viable alternative for a low-car future of mobility that will allow them to fully participate in economic, civic, and social life.

Which is why one of our other speakers, James Gleave, asked us to think about what powers transport and planning professionals are willing to give up to help people dig through the practical, cultural, and social influences that affect their choices so that they can develop, define, and perhaps even deliver their own visions for their own communities. In such a scenario, transport planners might become more than regulators and legislators or even funders. They could take roles as leaders and educators, stewards and customers, negotiators and reformers.

And these suggestions fit in well with the other challenges to developing a future of mobility that is visionary.

Keith Mitchell noted that despite the push to prioritise housing numbers over places, the private sector is already looking at what other roles they should fulfil to deliver better visions. Tackling climate change and social value are gaining prominence in their tenders for work.

Leo Murray noted that technology, and particularly EVs, cannot alone solve the climate emergency. By some calculations, a reduction of 60% in vehicle miles travelled is required by 2030, and it won’t happen without a vision – and different roles for planning professionals to make sure that vision is shared.

Besides, even where legislation and policy support already exist, from the Climate Change Act to legislation and policy on equity and inclusion, as Joanna Ward noted, it may be the lack of diversity and awareness of different access needs among decision-makers which is perpetuating biases.

Our second keynote speaker, Lynda Addison OBE, summed up the problem perfectly. Not only do we need to start with a vision, which is our destination, but that collaborative vision should be based on the premise that ‘Transport is the solution, not the problem’. Then, instead of transport being something to mitigate through the land use planning process, sustainable travel choice are part of the vision we are working towards through the spatial planning process. Plans and planning applications can respond to the vision through inter-disciplinary evidence gathering and iterative thinking.

In other words, start at your destination, your vision, then work backwards, but your path will not be linear, but circular. Ask: What exists already that fits the vision? What opportunities or obstacles sit between where you are now and where you want to be? What actions can you or your organisation take and what actions must be taken by others, by people working at a larger or smaller scale? We asked questions of this sort in the final workshop of the event.

And we discovered a few answers. Not all, as an iterative process means going back and forth between the vision and those questions, not just as a small group of transport planners, but as wider communities. Yet we certainly learned a few things. One of which is how difficult it is to start at your destination!

Subjectively Assessed Places

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I was reading up recently on ‘objectively assessed need’ – for housing, not transport. Our land use planning colleagues in England who work in policy development at local government level start their plan-making by calculating something called ‘objectively assessed need’. The number of court cases related to housing allocations since this calculation became national policy 8 years ago suggests that it is not necessarily ‘objective’. Indeed, even with a new ‘standard method’ introduced by the revised National Planning Policy Framework, I would argue that it is still very much subjective. Yet that is only a problem because of claims to objectivity in the first place. This is a problem long faced by transport modellers, and which, for both, could be overcome by embracing subjectivity of place.

But let me take a step back. Objectively assessed need is intended to be a transparent methodology to tackle the lack of housing, house-building, and affordability in the country by calculating how many houses need to be built, ideally within, local planning authorities over set time periods. The idea is that this calculation should take place at the outset, before considering any other matters, including land availability. The basis of the calculation in the new standard method is national demographic statistics that have already been pre-processed into ‘household formation’ forecasts, which is then boosted by a ratio of the affordability of local housing stock compared to local income. It is the ‘predict and provide’ of housing.

Yet just as studies have shown that population growth, economic growth, and fuel prices are no longer (if they ever were) directly linked to traffic growth, so household formation and house prices do not appear the best indication of how many new houses people need. Mainly because all these things are taken out of their spatial context. Demographic and economic trends affect urban and rural places differently. The availability and quality of technology and its future uncertainties differ by region. Accessibility to local services and living costs might have a greater influence than housing affordability on household formation or its suppression, never mind car dependency, commuting patterns, and the availability and quality of existing residential stock. A standard methodology is hardly likely to be equally and objectively accurate in every place.

Furthermore, even if and perhaps because these various input statistics are for use at the level of the responsible local authority for planning or transport, subjectivity is unavoidable before the analysis even begins. Local authorities and their administrative boundaries were determined by history and politics, not by functional economic, labour, or transport considerations. Boundaries can sever locally-recognised neighbourhoods, service catchment areas, and appropriate housing or transport inputs for forecasting. Thus, such forecasts cannot be objective.

But is this a problem? Not if the subjectivity of places is embraced. Not if professional land use and transport planners are empowered to apply knowledge of local circumstances to their understanding of future demographic or economic trends, and to integrate their vision of accessibility and sustainability. Not if local people are engaged to consider a future that tolerates growth and change and is sensitive to the community’s existing culture. We need transparent methodologies, but not ones divorced from the places for which they are planning. Places which may be best assessed with subjectivity, sensitivity, and professionalism, rather than objectivity, standardisation, and regulatory rubber-stamping.

Exterior Designs

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Next week, the Transport Planning Society is holding ‘Transport Planning Day’ and presenting a People’s Award to a “local transport planning initiative” nominated by the community for the positive impact it has had on their neighbourhood. Among the short list is a vintage bus, a ‘parklet’, and a rather lovely pedestrian-cycle bridge over a gorge.

Last week, I attended a seminar about the project Use-It that recruited community researchers and asked them to find out what their neighbours really felt about their built environment, and then act as liaison between their communities and the local Council, developers operating in the area, the University and other stakeholders. Some of the results included a desire to redefine planning conditions on outdoor play areas, create a food-based social enterprise, and ensure the connectivity of a major new development to existing streets and paths.

And in between, I’ve been catching up on a favourite television programme: Grand Designs. Which got me to thinking, Grand Designs has a lot to say about the architecture of the homes it showcases, including the buildings, facades, interior design, and landscape design. It also philosophises about the architecture in terms of integrity, sustainability, function, and aesthetics. Yet, whilst the surrounding environment of the building and any views and constraints they may offer are referenced, there is no discussion of the design beyond the property boundaries, the exterior design.

On the other hand, exterior design is very much what the Transport Planning Society’s People’s Award, the Use-It project, and indeed transport planners, community activists, and many others with civic concerns are all about.

I call it exterior design instead of urban design because urban design is rarely considered part of transport planning or vice versa. It excludes more rural or even ‘small town’ places. And although urban design does have roots in architecture, I have rarely heard it expressed in the philosophical tones presenter Kevin McCloud employs so well, that great design has to reflect the people who invest in it and make it and live in it.

Is it any wonder that the projects shortlisted for the People’s Award and chosen by the community researchers are people-focused, not building / vehicle oriented? Is it a surprise that the aesthetic of a vintage bus or a green oasis in place of a parking space or a beautiful bridge have more appeal than widening motorways or reprogramming traffic signals? Is it so unexpected that communities faced with a large new development are most concerned about play areas, pedestrian paths, and the potential for locally-sourced food?

No, because there is the same instinctive attraction to such projects and places and spaces as there is to ideas of child-friendly cities that I wrote about back in the summer.

There are, of course, many challenges in reflecting not an individual or a family, but a whole community, and doing so not in a single dwelling, but the public realm. But starting with abstract numbers of people movements and vehicle flows does not result in great exterior design.

The recent mantra is we need to do more visioning in strategic transport planning, for both big infrastructure, as well as local area enhancements. So why not make the task easier by waxing philosophical about how we want public spaces, transport spaces to look and feel, rather than assume a vision needs to be couched in abstract policy terms. Maybe there is something to thinking about form over function? Kevin would probably say that a good form is one that will function well.

At the very least it could help broaden the sorts of discussions with communities that the People’s Award and the Use-It project were designed to instigate. A discussion about transport planning indirectly, a discussion about exterior design.